Monthly Archives: September 2016

I’m sure before you had a child that was born with a critical illness, you knew of your local Children’s Hospital, but you didn’t really know about it. You’ve probably said to yourself, “I’m glad we have it, I just hope we never have to use it.” For you that wish didn’t come true and ushered in a reality that you never expected.

Like all of us, you’ve made many trips to and from these hospitals and walked through the same set of doors over and over: rain or shine, sleet or snow, holiday or humdrum Wednesday. As we left our – hopefully – last surgery with Nolan, I started to really think on the significance of the front door of the hospital.

The Door can lead to our greatest fears, but also our greatest hope. There have been way too many times where I’ve had to walk from the parking garage to these doors, and every step closer makes me more scared and more nervous. Because on the other side of The Door is something scary for my son, something unknown, something painful, but something necessary. But also on the other side of those doors is a team of people who have the professional training to give your kid a shot at a full life. This door also leads the way back home…it says “we made it.” The Door leads to thanksgiving…to joy…to peace.

The Door also leads to suffering. And before you think I’m getting too heavy, just let me say that I believe we don’t talk about suffering enough when it comes to healthcare. Because it makes us uncomfortable and carries a negative connotation. But like it or not, this is the reality of what occurs every single day at a hospital: innocent kids given a diagnosis they don’t deserve, losing time on a childhood that should be free of pain and fear. There are parents who walk through those doors everyday consumed with thoughts like: is he going to make it? How am I going to pay for this? How long? How much more can I do? What about work? And on and on and on. They suffer, too.

Healthcare workers: you have such a power within your hands to impact suffering. Sure, if my son hurts you give him something for it. If I’m cold, you give me a blanket. That’s what’s considered inherent suffering. It’s tied to the thing we’re here for. But what else? There’s another type of suffering called avoidable suffering and preventing/reducing this takes a lot of effort and isn’t something you learned in school. What does this look like? It’s the worker(s) that walk past the lost parents in the hallway, because “I’m too busy right now.” It’s the worker that doesn’t make eye contact. It’s the one who talks down to people. It’s the one who won’t realize that the hospital isn’t quite home for a sick kid, and won’t go beyond the scope of their job description to make that better. It’s the worker who operates off of a checklist instead of a heartbeat. It’s the one who sees a parent as “pushy” or “snappy” without realizing that we…are…suffering. Once you realize that and try to put yourself in our shoes, it will drastically change the way healthcare is delivered. Because human connection and empathy are a powerful way to help heal. I know you didn’t get into healthcare for checklists, productivity reports, and to spend half the day scouring the building for the last working med pump. When you empathize and see suffering for what it is, you will reconnect with the reason you got into this business.

What about those who walk back out the doors and re-enter their lives? To friends and family: you play a crucial part in alleviating suffering, too! Please realize that while the surgery was a success, and the prognosis is good, we’re going back into a world that’s forever changed. There might be medications to give, multiple appointments, tube feeds, endless stops at the pharmacy, loss of work, increase in stress, and a new schedule that basically says we can’t hang out like we used to. We want nothing more than to go back to that, but this is our new reality. And it’s really, really hard sometimes. And we need you. Don’t stop inviting us to stuff: one day we’ll surprise you and say yes. Don’t stop asking how you can help, even if you don’t know what you’re doing. Realize that while we might wear a smile, it’s not always that way in our minds. We’re always going to worry about the future, that’s just how it is. So text your friend, send a card, cook them a meal…just let them know they’re loved. And try to understand what it would be like for you if the rug was suddenly pulled out from under you and you’re left to put it back together. And I also can’t let this paragraph end without saying that unfortunately there are people who walk through The Door empty-handed forever. I cannot imagine the pain these families face. Please be there with love and patience and kindness. If it was you, you’d want the same.

The Door is a place of great heaviness, but there are things we can all do for those who are currently standing at The Door. If we realize they have fears and are suffering, we can surely do things – through compassion and empathy – to give them the power of hope and joy. They can walk into the hospital knowing they’ll be treated like family. And they’ll walk out knowing they are truly loved.

So this was new territory for us…the Rehab unit. While Nolan’s weakness was unexpected for us, we are always willing to do whatever it took to make him better. So to the 4th floor we went. We met with Dr. Tsai, who was over that unit and he was a very kind, compassionate guy…we really liked him. For some weird reason we technically had to be discharged from the hospital and re-admitted to the Rehab floor, even though we never once left the hospital. But oh well.

One thing became clear right away: we were outside the friendly confines of our usual CVICU and Progressive Care units, where caring for kids with CHDs is right in their wheelhouse. Here? Not so much, but that’s not a bad thing. We just had to do a lot of explaining and re-explaining, and – of course – resetting the blasted pulse ox machine so it wasn’t beeping every 45 seconds. A slew of therapists came through to do initial evals on Nolan and we learned that everyday except Sunday he would have up to 3 hours of therapy a day and they would come in every afternoon to post the next day’s schedule on a calendar in our room, which was pretty cool. It would have the therapy, the therapist’s name, their picture, and length of time. They even scheduled nap/rest times. I actually liked knowing who was coming and when, as opposed to other floors when people just show up (you know how that is…come on, people). Otherwise the staff worked pretty well with us as they got used to Nolan and let us kinda control how often they’d come in and bug him and even let us give most of the meds if we were able. That really ensured a more restful night…for him, not for us: we slept on an awful, skin-eating vinyl couch, but whatever.

On Nolan’s second day they jumped right into things like helping him stand and use his arms for play:

It was a rough go at first: he was still very weak and still on oxygen so things were slow-moving and he got tired easily. But this is Nolan we’re talking about, so he’s a trooper! We enjoyed walks around the hospital in his wagon and even fun time in his room…one of his favorites was playing Bingo:

The combo of letters and numbers was right up his alley. We’d use the TV in the room to tune into the radio station in the lobby and he would call and say “BINGO!” whenever he’d make a line. Then two of the interns would come up dressed like Disney characters and bring him a prize. He LOVED it.

So on and on it went: Nolan continued to work really hard and began making some good progress. He even got some visits from the therapy dogs:

We got to meet some families there in that unit who had been there for some time and would be there for some time. Their kids were going through some real difficulties and my heart went out to them. We knew Nolan would regain his strength and for that I’m thankful. Nolan started getting more energy (and got pushier and bossier, as is his custom) and eventually we got to this point:

That is a post-Fontan, little beast, completely walking on his own with NO oxygen! YEAAAAAAAAAH BOY!

So the next step, then, was to get the heck outta this place and get back home! WOOHOO! And then finally…33 days after we went in for the Fontan…Super Nolan walked back through those hospital doors and we made our way back home, where we can focus on an amazing future for this little nugget:

After a long, exhausting day of waiting for Nolan’s surgery to be done, we were ready to begin to road to recovery. As I’m sure you know, all heart kids are different, so recovery times can vary…but we were hoping for something like 2 weeks, 3 tops. They managed to extubate Nolan late that same night and then they continued to work on stabilizing his blood pressure and managing his pain. You could tell he was in some discomfort because his brow would furrow from time to time.

Eventually he settled down a little and even asked for some water and agreed to watch an ABC video (he is obsessed with he alphabet). It seemed like he was showing some definite signs of himself.

Still, he did just go through a major surgery, so he was pretty agitated and restless. He would try to toss and turn, I’m sure it was an effort to be more comfortable since he likes to sleep on his side. He even almost rolled completely over at one point, it was like trying to hold down an angry eel. But we settled him down. His belly was distended so we held off on feeds for the time being and we just let his awesome medical team work their magic. According to the physicians over the next several days, the Fontan looked like it was working properly and the fenestration was doing what it should. If anything they wanted to keep an eye on some narrowing in his pulmonary artery, which they already ballooned once during his cath earlier this year.

Nolan continued to be restless and fussy and it was really difficult to keep him calm. He was draining quite a bit from his chest tubes, which is good, and the plan was to get his belly to calm down and to get him up and moving to help with the drainage. Eventually we got one chest tube out while the other continued to drain. Every day they came to do an x-ray to see how his chest was doing and eventually they had to put in another chest tube. I wasn’t thrilled about that, since those are obviously uncomfortable for him, but if it’s one step closer to home it needed to be done.

The biggest concern was around Father’s Day, where I noticed considerable weakness in Nolan’s arms. In fact, he didn’t really move them. I brought this up to his medical team, and the next day, and the next day, before someone finally looked into it. That was extremely frustrating because, you know, you want to be heard as a parent. But with his nurse’s help, we were able to advocate for a closer look. They some neuro checkups and a couple EEGs to rule out any neurological problems, and determined that some big-time therapy would get that function back.

Eventually we got Nolan’s agitation under control and got him moved from the CVICU to the Progressive Unit. While up there he was able to get out of the bed and ride around in the wagon and even got some visits from the therapy dogs. We began some in-room therapy with him and he was happy to realize that those two little legs still worked great and were getting stronger. We got feeds re-started on him and eventually both chest tubes came out and those daily x-rays looked clearer and clearer.

Now normally we would be discharged from the Progressive Unit and head home, but since Nolan was still very weak, we had to be transferred to the Rehab Unit. This would be a whole new experience for us…